


Metal Bed Frame

by paperandsong



Series: Vraiment Existé [1]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Crack, Gen, Hospital bed, all other tags would be spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28897626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperandsong/pseuds/paperandsong
Summary: Leroux-based hospital bed crack.
Series: Vraiment Existé [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2175900
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	Metal Bed Frame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catcorsair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catcorsair/gifts).



**April 14, 1927**   
**Nice, France**

The patient rolled his body in discomfort as darkness fell over the little yellow room. The bed frame creaked and complained. The nurse snuffed out the lamp on the bedside table and slipped back into the hall. She could not bear to be near him any more. The smell of death had creeped in as if through the window. She left it wide open so that it might creep right back out again. He was mumbling, lost in a dream, poor soul. He shifted again, the sheet pulling tight across his massive midsection. They say he had not been bad looking in his youth. But now his beard was grizzled, his once jovial corpulence pure bloat. She hoped he did not wake up anytime soon. How awful it was to watch a man die. She picked up her magazine and found her place again.

He smelled it too, that reek of death. That damp, moldy scent. It did not mean he was certain to die - only that he had a visitor. He could sense it hiding in the corner, behind the gauzy curtains that wafted on the springtime breeze.  
“Is that you?” he called out over his belly. “Come out. I know it’s you.”  
Two yellow orbs of light made themselves known to him. Like a cat descending from its hiding place, the figure approached the bed.   
“Ah, see. I knew it was you. I could smell you from here. What do you want?”   
“I have seen the film.”  
“Oh finally!” he chuckled into his chest. “And what did you think?”  
The figure sat down in the nurse’s chair, his back to the window, his face in shadow. He pressed the tips of his long fingers together before speaking. As if giving much consideration to his answer.  
“I believe that M. Chaney is quite the talented make-up artist. But he looked nothing like me.”  
“Well, they couldn’t very well cut off the actor’s nose just for accuracy! He did the best he could. And what did you think of Mlle. Philbin?”  
A grave silence fell between them. The man gave a shallow swallow as he realized his mistake. He had only to wait now for his punishment.  
“The young lady who played the role of Mlle. Daaé?” The shadow shook its head. “I’d rather not discuss it. She could not bring my Christine back to me so why - why even speak of Mlle. Philbin?”   
“Did you come to complain about the film? Or something else? And how are you even still alive?”  
“I will never die, Gaston.”  
“But it was printed in the Epoque. I even have the clipping in my files.”  
“Do you believe everything you read in the papers?”  
“And I wrote it myself. I wrote you dead.”  
“Do you believe everything you write?”  
“I had primary sources!”  
“Daroga was no such thing. He fed you a plate of lies, filtered through his own bitterness. He used you as a tool for his own redemption.”   
“Nonsense. I met the man in person. I spent time with him. He was a kindly soul.”  
The figure snorted. He leaned forward and placed his fingertips on the edge of the bed, spreading them along the crisp linen sheet.   
“There was so much you misunderstood, Gaston. My list of grievances against you is long. Longer still against that dandy of a translator who put my story into English!”  
“Well, he died several years ago, so you can tell it to him in hell.”  
They shared a laugh. At one time the man’s laughter would have echoed down the hallway and jolted the sleeping nurse out of her chair. But his lungs were weak now, the weight of his belly pressing down against his lungs. The figure began to run his hands along the sheets more vigorously. With more intention.  
“Of all the details you got wrong about my story, there is one that haunts me still.”  
“And what might that be?” the man asked. The figure then slipped his hands under the top sheet and blanket and found the edge of the man’s body. The man jerked away from the freezing things prodding his skin.  
“Ah! You really are cold - stop that!”  
The figure’s arms were so long he did not even have to lean very far over the bed to reach the man’s midsection. The fingers ran down through the paunch-fur and slipped under the waistline of the fine cotton pajamas.   
“Stop I said - oh no! Don’t touch me there. It is very tender!” The man squirmed and tried to roll himself away from the figure’s grasp. But it was no use and soon he was caught in jaws of cold unyielding bone.  
“You left out so much,” the honeyed voice complained. “Your readers were bound to think she hated me. You wrote of the masked ball, but you let the scene end before it had even begun. I came and found her in her dressing room and she was ready for me. The angel was waiting for me! But you could not know what transpired after she followed me down to my house by the lake…”   
The fingers tightened their hold on the man’s flesh until it became hard.   
“You could not know that she even agreed that night to become my wife. She did, it is true. She slipped her little hands under the red velvet of my magnificent costume and she held me, just like this Gaston. I tell you, just like this.”   
“I bet her hands were much warmer…” the man sputtered. The figure laughed.  
“As warm as a rabbit’s heart. And they beat just so…”   
The fingers began to throb and pull against the man’s sex. Despite his best efforts, the man let out a moan of pleasure. The bedframe whined beneath him.  
"Quiet, or that little nurse will come in and interrupt."  
“Go away,” the man hissed between gasps of delight. “You demon - leave me alone. Can’t you see I am in pain? I am on my sickbed!”  
“You are on your _death_ bed, my friend. And I am here to make certain you know that Christine loved me. Seeing as you have left so much doubt in your so-called novel. And now my tragedy has been projected onto the big screen for all the world to laugh at! But I was loved, curse you!”   
The figure worked his hands savagely against the man’s sex. With each word he panted, he jerked the thing more roughly. Without any care. Until the man cried out in agony, and the figure remembered himself.  
“Oh no, that is not what I wanted to show you. She was so delicate. So gentle. Like this, cher Gaston, like this. Her warm little hands, so innocent, so tentative.” The figure began to weep. “She had never touched a man before, she assured me. Such a little angel she was.”   
“But did she kiss you?” the man spit. The figure’s motions ceased.  
“What?”  
“Did she kiss you, Erik? As your virginal little angel rubbed one out of you? Did she reach up and take your lips in hers?”  
“I would put an end to you now but you are as good as dead anyway,” the figure hissed, resuming his more vengeful caress, bringing the man to an angry finish. The man couldn’t help but cry out as his climax burned against his infection. 

Erik wiped his soiled hands as Gaston lay on his back, wheezing the last flame of pleasure out into the night air.   
“Do you see now? How she loved me?”  
“I see Erik,” he said weakly.  
“Why did you make me so pathetic? You wrote me like a dog!”  
“Can you go now?” the man sighed. “If this is truly my deathbed, there are any number of other people I would rather visit me. I had a grand life, you know? I did a lot of other things! It wasn’t even my most successful work.”   
“Tell them I was real.”  
“What?” he groaned.  
“Tell them I was flesh and blood!”  
“I already did. It’s all there in the novel. If you had actually read it, you would know that.”  
The man turned his head away in exhaustion but the ghastly creature took his face in its claws and pulled him back to stare into those burning yellow eyes one last time.   
“Make sure they believe it. Make sure I never, ever die.”  
  
The nurse woke herself up with a start. She wasn’t supposed to sleep during her shift. She heard the grating of metal on metal coming from the room and yelped in alarm. She jumped to her feet and ran to her patient’s side, wading through the dark and septic air. She found him awake, but disoriented.  
“Is there anything you need, M. Leroux? Would you like some water? What was that? What was that you said?" She leaned her ear close to his feeble whisper. "Of course, M. Leroux,” she cooed. She patted his hand with pity. “Of course he was real.”


End file.
